


Divergence (the Crosscurrent Remix)

by alamorn



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Memory Related, Remix, Sansa-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-26 23:33:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12069231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alamorn/pseuds/alamorn
Summary: At the end of every day, Sansa likes to pick apart everything that happened and tell it again.(The fight on the banks of the Trident, and memory.)





	Divergence (the Crosscurrent Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [smilebackwards](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smilebackwards/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Crosscurrent](https://archiveofourown.org/works/310112) by [smilebackwards](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smilebackwards/pseuds/smilebackwards). 



> Divergence: when surface water is pushed apart by the action of cold, nutrient-rich water upswelling. Recognizable by surface drifters leaving the area.

At the end of every day, Sansa likes to pick apart everything that happened and tell it again. She tells the day like she tells the old stories — Florian and Jonquil were once just living their lives, after all, and likely the day before an adventure or a romance does not stand out while it’s happening. If she’s going to tell her own romance right, she needs practice.

Rickon likes to listen to her, or demand that she tells his day. “I didn’t live your day,” she tells him, so he tells her what he did and then she tells it back. Puddles turn into impassable lakes. Theon becomes a land bound kraken or a dangerous pirate by turns.

The day that the court comes to Winterfell, Sansa is almost too excited to tell the story, but Rickon throws himself into her bed and demands, so she reorders the day — they arrived earlier, when the sun was high and sent spears of light shining off the well-polished armor. The yard stayed dry and stable, and the carriage house did not sink into the mud. And when Joffrey saw her, they both stopped breathing — she was overwhelmed by his golden beauty and he was taken with her red hair. Love at first sight, she sighs, and Rickon hits her with a small fist.

“The _fights_ , San,” he demands.

The fights. She takes a deep breath and tries to think of how to dress them up pretty. _Fight_ is a bit of an overstatement. Robb and Jon sparred with some of the southron knights and boys, while Arya watched, too intent by far. There’d been lots of mud, and Robb had been knocked into it. She hadn’t liked the knights, if she was being honest, but she’s sure they’ll be good and noble and kind when she’s queen. She’ll make them.

She figures out a story that makes everyone look good, and there’s plenty of blades sliding together and against armor and throwing off sparks, so Rickon’s satisfied.

 

The day she stumbles back from the riverbank, Joffrey’s blood on her hands, crying, she spends hours trying to untangle the story. She works backwards. The Hound had caught her and pushed a rough handkerchief into her hands before rushing off to where she’d pointed. Kneeling in the grass as Joffrey bled. Arya throwing the sword in the river. Arya holding the sword and Joffrey begging. The violence, the way Joffrey said, “I won’t hurt him. Much.” The sweet taste of wine on her lips, the joy of being out with her prince.

It can’t be right, none of it. It can’t have happened like that. Joffrey _can’t_ be cruel. She’s _marrying_ him. So he can’t have said, “I won’t hurt him much.” But no one else could have said it either — Arya would _never_.

She cries into Lady’s fur, rough handkerchief balled up in her hand. There’s still blood under her nails.

And eventually she sleeps. She dreams. She dreams the sword cutting into her own face, and the one pressing it there shifts from Joffrey to Arya and back. She dreams that Joffrey had Arya on the ground, and that Lion’s Tooth flashes silver bright and Arya’s throat gushes blood.

She wakes and cries some more, until Lady is whimpering and crawling onto her chest, pushing her deep into her camp bed. With the weight on her chest, she can’t get the air to sob, and she calms, rather against her will. With Arya gone, the tent is quiet and Sansa can’t stand it. So she tells Lady how Arya has joined a wolf pack, and is happy and wild and safe.

 

Days later, Arya comes back. Without Nymeria. Not with a wolf pack, not even with her wolf. Sansa feels obscurely betrayed, but she doesn’t have a chance to tell Arya so before she’s dragged in front of the King and Queen and her Prince Joffrey to tell the story of what happened.

Back at Winterfell, the only thing Sansa ever got in trouble for was telling stories. No one ever called them lies, at least not to her face. She was a good girl, after all, and she was always confused, when they told her she was wrong, that it hadn’t happened like that.

“ _Liar_!” Arya cries and Sansa flinches before the blow lands. But Arya’s hand is empty, and the slap stings, but not as much as a blow from a broomstick or a sword blade would have.

Sansa finds herself staring as Arya struggles against Jory’s hold. She isn’t a liar, she isn’t, it’s just…

All she’s sure of is fear, and blood, the splash of a blade hitting the water. The bruise on her chest where Joffrey had shoved her away.

Truth be told, she’s only sure that it was Lion’s Tooth in the river because Joffrey had not stopped complaining of it. And because Arya stands before her uninjured, while Joffrey’s arm is bandaged. But while Arya was gone, she couldn’t remember if he’d slashed her instead of the butcher’s boy, and whether it was across the face or the throat, and opened her flesh to the bone. She’d kept her distance from him, had held close to Lady each night.

“We have a wolf,” Queen Cersei says and Sansa flinches harder, though it takes a long moment for the meaning to land.

“A dire wolf is a savage beast,” King Robert says, as if he’s ever so much as looked at Lady, as if he knows anything at all. He’s no true king, Sansa decides, as savagely as she can. “Get her a dog, she’ll be happier for it.”

“Lady didn’t do anything!” she cries, Arya’s voice joining hers. “Lady’s innocent, please, don’t hurt her!”

It’s not supposed to go like this. This isn’t the story. Lady is _good_ , just like Sansa. She’s never hurt anyone. She’d even licked the Hound’s fingers when he offered her his hand.

Joffrey smiles at her, thin lipped and triumphant as if _Sansa_ was the one to throw his blade in the river, as if _Lady_ was the one to bite his hand. “My lady,” he said, and Sansa wishes that Nymeria had savaged his cruel face too, “take mine.”

Before she can understand his meaning, he pulls her by the wrist so she stumbles hard into the Hound. From so close, she can’t avoid looking at him. His face is unreadable under his scars, but at least there’s none of the satisfaction that Cersei wears.

“Easy,” he says, turning her back to the court, but keeping a heavy hand on her shoulder so she can’t move away. Her face feels bruised and tender. So does her heart.

“Bring me Ice,” her father says, “and take the girls to their tent. And keep them there.”

“No,” she moans, as the Hound starts to march her out of the tent. His hand twitches tighter but she’s too busy reaching out for her father, pleading, to complain.

Jory follows with Arya held tight. They’re shoved into their tent together, and she can hear the Hound say something to Jory and saw out a laugh before he stomps away. He killed Mycah, she remembers. Probably, a wolf makes no more difference to him.

Arya takes her hand and holds tight. “I’m _sorry_ ,” she says. When Sansa looks at her, her face is pinched and miserable, an echo of Sansa’s own.

She looks so sad that Sansa’s blame dies on her tongue. Instead she curls up on her bed and Arya settles next to her. _The lone wolf dies but the pack survives_ , and she left Lady alone to face Ice.

She starts crying again, and her chest aches.

There is no way to tell this story. She can’t even begin to try.

She can’t piece together the events, only the results. Lady is dead. Nymeria is gone. And no matter the gifts Joffrey showers on her, she has to fight a flinch every time he smiles.

 

Later, when she is the only Stark left alive in King’s Landing, and the night burns green, Sandor Clegane comes to her. This is what she knows, with every morning after: he left his cloak. He’s gone.

This is the story she can tell from that: he loves her. Or…wants her, at least. Sansa is less certain of _love_ than she once was. He thought of her, when he was dead drunk and nearly just dead, and wanted to save her. It’s a good story, and better with distance.

She dreams of him. In some dreams he crawls into her bed and pushes his knife up through her throat. In some, he fists a hand in her hair and kisses her till she can’t breathe.

When she wakes from those dreams, if she has time, she takes out his white cloak and wraps it around her shoulders and tells herself a story.


End file.
